The NTPA Hall of Fame is peppered with men who have made an indelible mark on the sport. Men who have impacted pulling both on and off of the track. Although it is true that most men have made their mark by winning numerous titles or pioneering the way for NTPA, this 2007 inductee is a man who is as well known for pioneering the sport as well as being a promoter of it. He is namely known for promoting an event that has been a staple on the NTPA Championship Pulling Circuit since 1973. The event is simply known to the pulling world as “The Fort”. The man who has helped guide this event for a quarter of a century in Ambassador Park is simply known as Arnie.

Arnie Beumer’s address is Portland, Indiana, but you would be hard pressed not to call Fort Recovery, Ohio his home, as it is just a couple of miles east of the Beumer homestead. Arnie’s occupation involved farming and raising over 300,000 chickens (known as pullets) annually.

In the late 1960s, Beumer was asked by a group of local individuals to help get a pull started in Fort Recovery. The first years of pulling there were strictly brush pulls. As thing progressed, the challenge of promoting an event got into Arnie’s blood. In fact so much that for years, Ambassador Park held a pair of NTPA Events - one in July and one in August. For years, Fort Recovery was known as the only venue hosting a pair of NTPA National Events. Arnie held the reins of the events on behalf of the Ambassador Club, in which the funds generated over the years led to the betterment of the Fort Recovery community.

Beumer was selfless in promoting this event, keeping in mind a very important commodity: the fan. “Fans throughout the summer will be expecting great shows,” said Beumer in a 1990 Puller magazine article, “and that’s what they should get. It’s up to all of us to give that fan his money’s worth and give him a good show.”

In 1991, Beumer and the Ambassadors took over the hosting of the annual Enderle Pull-Off and was a caretaker to one of the sports most important sponsors for 15 seasons. Another challenge in the life of Arnie Beumer, but he and the Ambassadors brought renewed energy to the program to which it was able to embark on its own last season. The Enderles still view Fort Recovery as a second home thanks to the attention given them.

Another part Arnie’s legacy was that fact that he was among the first to invest in the newly formed World Pulling International, Inc, a new corporation to run all business aspects of NTPA. At a 1987 meeting in Minneapolis, just two years after WPI’s inception, Beumer was elected to its board of directors and served there for 24 years. Many peers saw Arnie as an ideal man to help bring about stability and responsibility to a system needing amends. So, a new challenge was awaiting Beumer, and he was part of turning around a fractured system into a sound one.

Beumer would speak his piece, and many times would counter balance a subject matter to include the fans, promoters, and sponsors angle. When Arnie spoke, people listened and the sport benefited. If you look at the challenges that WPI faced in those early years from the financial peril of an otherwise bankrupt NTPA in 1987 to the advent of the roll cage in 1999, Arnie was a key cog in making the correct and tough decisions on behalf of WPI/NTPA.